


Ring of Circumstance

by HopeofDawn



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst and Humor, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Awkward Alistair, Canon-Typical Violence, City Elf Origin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-09
Updated: 2011-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-16 19:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because you don't have to be a Grey Warden to be a hero.  And because even Alistair has to ask the hard questions sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ring of Circumstance

He shouldn’t ask. Even he knows that.

Sten and the mabari are both on watch, with Leliana and Zevran out hunting in the hope of replenishing their supplies. He doesn’t hold out much hope for their success; game has become scarce, beasts as well as men fleeing the advance of the Blight. Wynne is on the far side of camp, working on poultices, or potions, or meditating or … well, he doesn’t know for sure what she’s doing, just that it isn’t here. So for the moment, at least, they have the fire to themselves.

She’s discarded her armor, same as him. Hard to relax in full plate, after all. Or sleep, or piss, or--well, do just about anything that isn’t fighting, truth be told. Funny how they never mention that in any of the tales. Of course, if this were a minstrel’s tale, she would be golden in the firelight, with soft hands and perfumed hair. An elven princess, maybe, tragic and brave and beautiful, and he …

… he’d be scared spitless, to be honest. But Alistair had figured out long ago how little tales measured up to reality. Especially for Grey Wardens.

He’s pretty certain that the warrior-queens and -kings in the tales didn’t ever sit around fires in little more than a blood-stained gambeson and chausses, reeking of darkspawn stink and rusty iron. Or that they patched the worn-through soles of their own boots, cobbling together rough leather in the hopes that it would last another day’s march. The heroines certainly never had hair hacked brutally short, tied back to fit better under their helm, or a dented shield leaning against their knee. _(The dent was almost the perfect shape of a hurlock’s head. Another day, another ambush, and they’d stood shoulder to shoulder, and she’d punched the shield into the face of a darkspawn that had tried to flank them, spraying crimson gore and fragmented bone. They would have to remember to have an armorer hammer that out, next time they came across one.)_

Still. They hadn’t been totally wrong. At least about the brave and beautiful part.

And apparently … married.

Or almost-married, or *something*. And it shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does. He knows he shouldn’t ask. She hadn’t mentioned it for a reason, and if she wanted to talk about it, she would have. He’d asked in Denerim, in the Alienage.

 _“There were rapists. And someone brought the wrong cake. Disastrous!”_

And then she’d turned away, and there had been blood mages to kill, and elves to save, and he’d never had the chance to stammer out an apology. It had taken him off-guard; he’s supposed to be the one with all the stupid jokes, not her--Alistair, Fereldan’s worst-kept secret, stableboy and bastard prince.

In the end, he hadn’t said anything. What could you say to something like that?

So he knows that he should just let sleeping mabari lie. But as she squints down at her boot, calloused fingers cobbling together rough-cured hide where it has split, the firelight catches the gold band on her finger. He’d seen it a hundred times before, and never thought about it, but now .... There’s nothing special about it. No warding glyphs, no gemstones or runes to protect or amplify; just a plain gold thing, somewhat battered with wear. It’s the only thing she wears that doesn’t serve a purpose, unlike Leliana and her flowers, or Morrigan and her jewels, and something in his chest twists.

He shouldn’t ask. But … he has to know.

He clears his throat, and Jer looks up from her work, giving him an inquiring glance. “So … um. Was just wondering ...” he flails for a bit, trying to find words that weren’t _‘I gave you a rose and told you my secrets and how could you be married and not *tell* me?’_

“Mm?”

He takes a deep breath, and tries again. “So, you were--married? You know, before?”

She stills. “Ah. That.” Jer looks down at the boot in her lap, fingers drifting over to cover the battered gold band. “Not … quite.” She shrugs. “It was an arranged marriage.”

“Oh--you didn’t want to be married?” That isn’t so bad, in a way. Arranged marriages are common, after all, and not just among nobles. The girls rarely have much say in any of it, he knows that much. Perhaps her intended had been an old man, or a brutal one, and she’d chosen Duncan and the Grey Wardens over being forced into a loveless match. But while it’s a nice story, and one that could even be true--as much as he wants to believe it, that still doesn’t explain the ring.

“Not really.” She gives him a shadow of a smile, edged in self-mockery. “My father arranged the marriage, and paid my bride-price. I had never really seen myself as someone’s wife, someone’s mother. I’d never even met Nelaros until the day of our wedding. Travel between Alienages is … difficult.” She hesitates, then continues, more quietly. “Still, I would have married him.”

“Your family didn’t give you a choice, I suppose.” He can sympathize; he knows what that feels like. At times it feels like he’s never made a single decision his entire life that wasn’t someone else’s idea.

“In a way.” Setting the boot aside, she props her chin on one fist, staring into the fire. “But not in the way you think. You’ve met my father. He’s a good man. If I had truly hated Nelaros, or absolutely refused to go through with the wedding, he wouldn’t have forced me. But … it was what he wanted. So I agreed.”

“That doesn’t seem like you,” he says without thinking--then backtracks as he realizes how that sounds. “I mean--not that you don’t love your family, or anything, but just--with all this--” he waves a hand at their campsite, the armor and weapons scattered near to hand, “I’ve seen you fight *dragons*. I just can’t imagine you as a, you know ….”

“A townwife?” Her mouth twists. “Well, I said I would have gone through with it--I never said I would be any good at it.” She gives him a sidelong glance, her eyes dark. “You’ve seen the Alienage. Family is all we have. My father wanted grandchildren, wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be alone, if he … well. I understood that. Not that it mattered in the end.”

He’s not entirely sure he wants to know. Still, he's come this far; in for a penny, in for a pound.

“What happened?”

She doesn’t answer right away; just looks away again, into the fire. As the silence drags on, he thinks that maybe she won’t answer him at all. That after all the talks, the awkward jokes and even more awkward flirting _(and the rose, which he’d thought for *sure* she would laugh at, but no, she had just cradled it carefully in armored hands, smiling as though she’d forgotten how until that moment)_ , he’d just thrown away any chance he might have had with her, all because he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut.

Then she spoke, words measured and even.

“There was a noble--the arl’s son, Vaughn. He and his cronies had decided to have a party, and apparently a few ‘knife-eared whores’ were just what they wanted for entertainment. So he showed up looking for some.”

“At a wedding?” The appalled words escape before he can think about them.

“Well, it wasn’t like it was a *real* wedding, was it?” Her expression might well have been carved from marble, blank and pitiless. “Might as well give the mabari weddings as elves. At least they don’t talk back--and don’t break bottles over the heads of noblemen who are trying to drag off elven girls for a fun-filled night of rape and abuse.”

“Was that--?”

“Me? No. That was Shianni.” Her stony facade finally cracks, her mouth curling upwards in a wry smile. “Knocked that bastard Vaughn out cold--he never even saw it coming.” She straightens a little, squaring her shoulders and lacing her fingers together. “She didn’t know who he was, you see. They came back, of course; we knew they would. This time there were more of them, with weapons. I would have still fought, but--well, I got blindsided.” And they’d fought together long enough, learned enough of each other’s blind spots and tells, that Alistair could see how much she still blamed herself for that.

“I woke up, locked in a storeroom. There were five of us altogether.” Her words had gotten shorter, more clipped, as if she were reporting the outcome of a battle and nothing more. “They killed one of the others, just as an example for the rest of us. Her name was Nola.” Her fingers tighten, pressing white over her knuckles. “She’d begged them to let her go.”

“After that, they dragged off the other girls. Left me as ‘entertainment’ for the guards. But somehow my cousin Soris had found a way in, had found a sword. They laughed at him, asked him what he thought he was going to do with it.”

Her smile this time is humorless, savage. The firelight limns the edges of her face, darkening the curved lines of the tattooed mask over her eyes. For a moment, she looks more demon than Grey Warden, her face shadowed and stark.

“He tossed it to me, and I cut them apart.”

And Alistair knows it couldn’t have been that easy, not with trained and armored soldiers against smaller, unarmored elves. That first moment of surprise would have been the only advantage she had. After that, the fight would have been brutal; desperate and messy in the way that fighting in enclosed spaces always was. That she came out alive, even so--no wonder Duncan had recruited her.

“We fought our way out. Soris hadn’t come alone; Nelaros had come as well. He hadn’t even known me a day, but … he still came.” Her voice softens, grows quiet, as if she risks summoning a ghost by saying the name too loud.

“He died there. He was a blacksmith, not a soldier; a guard ran him through.” Jer takes a deep breath, then continues. “I killed the guard. And the others--all of them. We cut our bloody way through that damned castle from bottom to top, through everyone who stood in our way, until we finally got to Vaughn.”

Now, finally, she looks at Alistair. Levelly, as if waiting for his judgment. “I killed him. Even knowing it was a death sentence, knowing what the shem would probably do to the Alienage. After what he did to us, I couldn’t let him live. He tried to buy me off with coin; instead I gutted him, and watched him die.” She shrugs, hunching her shoulders a little. “After that, I’m sure you can guess. We escaped, the Arl’s guard caught up to us, and Duncan invoked the right of conscription. Hard to say no under those circumstances.”

She sighs, and unlocks her hands as she tilts her head in his direction. “Not a very pretty story, I know.”

“No, I understand. Well--I don’t understand *them*, how can someone just … just because they’re noble, think that … anyway. But I understand why you did it. Sometimes …” and he hesitates, because he doesn’t want to sound all sermon-y, or Maker forbid, condescending (and she would probably bash *him* with her shield if he did), “...sometimes you just have to make the right choice. Even if it isn’t the smart choice. Or if there isn’t a right choice, then at least not the evil one. … if that makes sense. I think.”

“I … think so?” Visibly relaxing, Jer gives him a ghost of smile, wry but genuine. “And hey, at least I know who to talk to if I need to make any more dumb choices.”

“Oh ouch! Just because I’ve made a few--okay, maybe more than a few--doesn’t make me an expert,” he protests, laughing, more than a little relieved.

“Oh really? So it was someone *else* who was stepped on by a dragon? Who decided that tossing rocks into a lake of lava was a good idea? Who did that thing at Lake Calenhad--”

“Hey, that wasn’t *all* my fault!” he retorts, grinning and ducking playfully, hands up as if to ward off invisible arrows. “The lava thing? That was completely Ohgren’s idea; how was I supposed to know it would explode? And I’m sure the templars will recover--it’s not like I scarred them for life!”

“No? I think the sight scarred me for life,” she retorts, then snickers. “Still, it was probably worth it.”

“Only probably? I’m hurt.” He leans back, chuckling. Pine sap in the fire pops and crackles between them, providing a reassuring counterpoint to his thoughts as a comfortable silence falls. Jer watches it too, but he doesn’t think she really sees it, her chin propped on her palms. Her expression is reserved, a bit melancholy … but not torn by grief. Of course, it has been almost a year. _(even if it doesn’t feel like it, feels instead like Ostagar was only weeks ago, not months, with the Blight hammering at his dreams and burning in his blood, time pressing on them with each heartbeat, each mad quest)_ Time enough to mourn, or at least bury it deep enough to keep moving, keep fighting. _(Duncan’s loss is still a hollow ache in his gut, a knotted ball of regret and shouldhavebeenthere whenever he thinks of it, of the older man’s body lying broken and abandoned on the battlefield, food for the crows and the darkspawn. So he tries not to think of it.)_

“Did you love him?” he asks, more quietly.

Jer glances at him, a bit surprised. “I did mention that we hadn’t even known each other a day, right? He was handsome enough, but … no. I didn’t love him.”

“Then why …?” _If you never loved him, why wear his ring as if you were his widow?_ But that sounds crass, even inside his head, and so he merely nods at her folded hands, and the well-worn band on her finger.

“Oh--the ring.” Jer looks down at her hand, contemplating it for a few moments. “I thought about selling it more than once. Maker knows we could have used the money.” She tries to smile, but it never reaches her eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat. “I guess I keep it because … I think someone should remember him. He could have just walked away, and no one would have blamed him; but he didn’t. He was a blacksmith, not a warrior, but he still fought. He still came for us.” Her fingers curl into a fist, tightening the skin until the scars and callouses are etched in sharp relief around the gold band. “I think that’s worth remembering. Even if he wasn’t a king, or an arl, or a Grey Warden.”

Alistair doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until he’s forced to let it go. Not sure what to do, but feeling like he needs to do *something*, he reaches out, putting his hand over hers.

“You’re right. I wish that I’d known him,” he says finally, a bit ashamed that he had needed to know. To have some kind of selfish reassurance that he wasn’t competing with a ghost. “You know, in a way--he might have saved Fereldan. By saving you, I mean.”

“If we survive long enough to kill the Archdemon, you mean?” she says dryly.

“Hey, we’ve come this far, right? Gone to the Deep Roads, fought demons, been stomped on by dragons--how hard can an Archdemon be?” It’s a feeble attempt at humor and they both know it. Still, it’s better than nothing. More seriously, he adds, “And … thank you for telling me. It means a lot. To me.”

Her fingers curl into his, just for a moment. “I’m glad. At least now someone else knows.”

The moment stretches for a span of heartbeats, a quiet understanding--then ends in a sudden burst of noise, Fenrir barking joyfully as Leliana makes her way back into their little clearing, carrying a brace of rabbits. Jer gives him a wry look. “Looks like we’ll actually have something other than hard biscuit for dinner tonight.”

“Looks like,” he agrees. He reluctantly let go of her hand, unwilling to put up with the inevitable knowing looks and sly commentary from the others (and in Ohgren’s case, completely lewd and non-helpful suggestions). Tonight would be rabbit stew, and watching for darkspawn in the dark hours before dawn, and tomorrow would be even more marching, more battles. Still ... even with the Landsmeet ahead, and all that waited for them after … they had time. Maybe not enough, but … they had time, and for her sake, he would remember.

**Author's Note:**

> So did you ever have a game where the characters insisted on having scenes that didn't actually happen on-screen? Yeah, this is one of those. I know there are a zillion takes on the Tabris origin story, but this one demanded to be written--all cliches are, of course, the sole fault of the author.
> 
>  _(And yes, my f!Tabris wore her wedding ring through the entire game from beginning to end, because I’m just that kind of sap. ^_^ )_


End file.
